


Alive

by CastleriggCircle (BanjoOnMyKnee)



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Post-finale Speculation, Pre-Relationship, Victory Sex, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:44:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3414569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanjoOnMyKnee/pseuds/CastleriggCircle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little post-finale vignette I thought of on Friday, wrote on Saturday, and wanted to post today before the show doubtless goes in an entirely different direction. My first Sleepy Hollow fanfic, and my first fanfic of any description in many a long year...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alive

Katrina's magic had made a vortex, a tornado sweeping Abbie up into the void and then casting her down in the past, dazed and bruised in body and mind. Grace Dixon's powers were of a different kind, and the spell she wove flung Abbie back to her own time like a train speeding through a tunnel, racing to the rhythm of her hard-pounding heart. 

Oh God. Would she even recognize 2015, or had they ripped the timeline to shreds in spite of their joint struggles to make it right—in spite of Crane's fresh blood soaking her jacket? Would he still be there, in her time? Please God, let him be there and not 200 years dead, dead and rotted, dead for keeps this time. Her eyes burned, and she swallowed hard and held her breath against the blood-smell that seemed to grow stronger with each heartbeat.

She raced toward a light that grew stronger and brighter—didn't Jenny like to say that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train?—and all at once the world turned solid and steady again, and she fell to her hands and knees in exactly the spot she'd left from three days and two hundred years ago.

"Lieutenant!"

He was there and he knew her. Her Crane, all scruffy with his hair tumbled around his shoulders, right where she'd last seen him. Had Grace sent her back to the same instant she'd left? But no, all of Katrina and Henry's witchy gear was gone, replaced by a pile of books, a blanket she remembered from Corbin's cabin, a half-eaten sandwich, and a bag from the bakery where they always got their donut holes.

It took her the blink of an eye to notice that as she staggered to her feet. She took one running step toward Crane, but he met her more than halfway and spun her up into a crushing embrace. She clutched at his shoulders and felt him breathe, in and out, in and out. Her cheek nestled against his throat where his pulse beat—not slow and steady, not now, but strong and sure and alive, alive, alive.

He set her down but didn't let her go, long fingers digging into her shoulders, and she rested her palm on his chest where she could still feel his life—his beating heart, his breathing lungs.

His brows drew together as he studied her face. He touched a spot on her cheekbone with a delicate finger, and Abbie noticed how tight and stiff that spot was with dried blood. "Lieutenant..." His hand stole down to her jacket front and then to his own shirt, now blood-streaked too. "Are you...? You're hurt." He fumbled at his pockets. "I'll call the medics."

"No, Crane. I'm fine. It's not my blood." It was his, and suddenly three days' worth of fear and grief came pouring out of her in huge choking sobs.

"Abbie." He took her face between his hands, bending till their noses nearly touched. "It's all right. You're safe. You're back. Thank God you're back."

His lips brushed her face, catching her tears. When his mouth found hers she didn't know if it was on purpose or not, but she kissed him hard and snaked her arms around his neck to keep him there. He made a sound halfway between a sob and a groan as he opened his mouth over hers.

After that all that mattered was getting closer to him. They barely stopped kissing long enough to breathe, and without even thinking about it Abbie was shoving his coat off his shoulders. He went still for a moment, then his hands were fumbling at her belt and she kicked off her boots and helped him. His trousers had too damned many buttons. He batted her hands aside to manage them himself.

They were more than half clothed, but naked enough for what they needed now. Some very distant part of Abbie knew she might regret this in the morning—hell, she might regret it in five minutes—but for now he was alive and she was home and she needed this. They needed this. She pulled him along step by step, still kissing him like he was water in the desert, until her back hit the wall. She hitched one knee around his hip, and he picked her up. As soon as they had their balance he was in her, and her breath hissed out in a satisfied sigh.

"Abbie," he whispered. 

She met his eyes, bright with unshed tears and filled with desperate need. "Yes," she said.

They kept their eyes open the entire time. She needed to see him as much as she needed him inside her. Only at the very end did she throw her head back when she came with a gasping cry just after he groaned with the warm pulse of his own release.

When they'd caught their breaths, he rested a hand against her cheek, cautious and uncertain now even while their bodies were still joined.

"Crane," she said. "You're alive."

"And you're here."

She laughed helplessly. "I think we've pretty well established those facts." 

She twitched her hips, and he set her gently down. "I...this..."

Now she knew what it took to put Ichabod Crane at a loss for words. "I know," she said. "We had to prove we were alive. That's all."

He shook his head. "Not quite all. If Miss Jenny or Captain Irving had been the one trapped in the past, I would have made every effort to bring them home and rejoiced to see them restored, but not like this."

"No. But we're us." She'd come down just enough from her orgasm high and the sheer relief of making it back to 2015 and finding Crane waiting for her to feel vulnerable and ridiculous naked from the waist down, so she found her underwear and jeans and began tugging them back on. What to say to make this right, or at least not weird enough that they could move on from here?

They'd had this attraction almost from the beginning, but it had been all nice and subliminal before. Katrina was gone now, but that didn't mean Abbie and Crane needed to add another layer of complication to their own bond. Their duties as Witnesses weren't going anywhere, so if they tried to be lovers and it didn't work, they were still stuck with each other. Even aside from all that, it was too soon for him after losing Katrina, no matter how far apart they'd already drifted. And Abbie knew she wasn't ready—wasn't sure she'd ever be ready—for Crane as a lover. He was all-consuming enough as a partner and friend.

“So what do you propose that we do now?” he asked.

She bit down on the literal answer that she wanted to find her sister, a hot shower, and her own bed, in that order. “We go on like before.”

“We cannot forget that this happened.”

“No. But—damn it, Crane, I spent the past three days afraid—terrified—I’d never get back here or that I wouldn’t recognize 2015 anymore and you’d be gone. So I can’t have you acting all weird on me. I need you to still be my friend—with movies and coffee and karaoke and all that. Like before We’ve got five more years of evil left to fight, and I need you with me.”

He smiled. “That I shall be. I swear it.” He held out his hand, and she took it and let him pull her into another embrace, this one calm and platonic. Almost. He pressed his lips to the top of her head, and her whole body thrummed with new awareness of him. But she could deal with it. She could. She had to.

When she pulled away, he got his phone out. “I must text Miss Jenny,” he said. “There was to be a spell on the bank of the river at precisely sundown—”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“We thought someone should wait here, because we couldn’t tell if you would appear there, or where you’d last been. It had to be the river—something about time flowing onward like waters.” Even as he spoke his thumbs raced to tap out the text, and Abbie grinned. He’d gotten so good at the 21st century. Maybe with a few more years he’d get back some of that calm and confidence he’d had in his own time. “How did you come back?”

“Grace Dixon.”

“You met her? I’m glad. You must tell me—you must tell me everything.”

“I will,” she promised. “But can it wait a day or two? I—I can’t talk about it all, not yet.”

“Of course. You must take all the time you need. Only, one thing—Katrina?”

“Won’t be coming back.”

“I thought not.” He stared into the distance for the moment, then gave a tight nod, just a jerk of his chin.

His phone buzzed, and he glanced at the screen. “They’re on their way.”

“They?”

“Miss Jenny, Captain Irving, and his wife and daughter.”

“What?” 

“It’s a long story,” he said.

“You’ll have to tell me. Tomorrow.” That could keep, too. He was alive and she was back, and for now that was enough.


End file.
